


find your way back through (just like always)

by Catherines_Collections



Category: History Boys (2006)
Genre: Gen, I Can't Believe I Wrote This, Implied Relationships, Letter writing and Dakin's inability of such, M/M, Missed Opportunities, Poetry, Writing, and it's something Dakin's come to learn, sometimes time isn't your friend she's your enemy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-29
Updated: 2017-10-29
Packaged: 2019-01-26 06:46:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12551540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catherines_Collections/pseuds/Catherines_Collections
Summary: It’s impossible. Nothing has ever been impossible before.





	find your way back through (just like always)

**Author's Note:**

> AKA, the history boys fanfic I started months ago, just found, and then finished. Big thanks to @princessparadoxical who recommend this movie in the first place, so this is gifted to you if you chose to accept. 
> 
> I own nothing, enjoy!

Dakin starts to write one, one day. After Hector and the funeral, graduation and being pulled apart from everything he knew in order to ‘grow’ and 'prosper’. To become another cog in the relentless machine.

Somewhere in his mind a voice whispers: this is what you wanted. And well, he thought he had. With all the hours dedicated to studying and learning. It was what he wanted, but he can’t help but wonder if that’s still true.

It’s suspicious how much the voice sounds like Irwin. The cool nearly awkward voice mixed, shy working its way to confident, with only about an ounce of teasing.

It’s ridiculous, the whole unresolved mess with Irwin. The crash happened and then the funeral and the moment had passed. He spoke to Irwin a few more times since and there seems to have been no sense of loss hanging between them. Or maybe there was, maybe there was and it had all gotten jumbled at the funeral, channeling other feelings of loss and fueling the grief.

It doesn’t matter anyway. It’s not like he dreams about what would have happened lest Hector have crashed, about how maybe things would have been different: if maybe, they had gotten that drink. He doesn’t dream about what Irwin would have done, how he would look and taste.

He surely doesn’t think about it now, not in the midst of studying and training to become the best of the bunch of bests and beat anyone who stands in his way.

It’s why he needs to write the damn thing, he knows, but the words won’t come out. They don’t, flow like Hector said they did- like they would if you wanted them to. They’re all jumbled and cramped together and impossible to separate and align. He thinks he must be going mad.

He gets as far as lifting the pen to paper before he’s slamming it down and walking in circles in his cramped dorm room, hands running through his hair.

He’s not used to being so out of his element, though he’ll never admit it.

_Just write the damn thing,_ his mind scolds him, and that’s the thing isn’t it. Because he’s trying that, been trying to do that for hours, for days— for months if he’s being honest with himself.

The words are few and far between and sometimes he thinks he must be speaking an entirely different language than everyone on the planet at this point because he just can’t get this down.

It’s impossible. Nothing has ever been impossible before.

Not school, not making friends, not winning favor from his teachers, not seducing Irwin and frustrating him to his wits end. Nothing has ever seemed so impossible until now.

He glances at the clock of his dorm, rubbing a hand over his face when he sees it’s nearly one in the morning.

If he’d known it would have been this hard, well, he still would have ended up in the same spot because he never was one to back down from a challenge.

He stares at the clock, and then at the empty sheet of paper as though it will fill itself with words capable of melting and bending the heart.

He remembers how Posner used to talk about poetry: like it had some kind of power over its audience. Like it meant something more than common words and the wasted paper it was printed on.

He thinks of Scripps and after school sessions, of the gang and the feeling of belonging and the inside jokes about their math exams, drawing the short straw and riding home with Hector, and meeting Irwin behind the school that one time.

He settles himself into a bed of memories, and allows himself to sink.

Finally, when the words do come, they don’t flow in the way Posner and Hector always described. There is no structure, only chaos as he reaches desperately for the pen at his side and begins to scribble the words hastily onto the paper before they leave his brain for good.

The words come in a fatal sweep. In a breeze of wind following along with the cataloged memories his mind never fails to revert back to and explore further, like there’s something left unresolved, be he still doesn’t know what: doesn’t admit to himself what, because there are some things he knows are better left alone and unexplored.

He writes the words down, scribbles them as quickly as he can least he forget the next word, and when he finishes he finally allows himself a breath.

He reads over it, after. Again and again, making edits and revisions: shorting and lengthening it until it bleeds just the right amount of tragedy, holds just the right amount of twisted romance and fallen pride.

He spends the night writing and editing his work, and when he finally thinks to glance at the clock again he finds himself laughing at what he’s read.

It’s half passed six in the morning and Dakin is still editing his first poem. It’s definitely a sign that he sucks at this, but also a sign that he’s almost beaten each word into its proper placement.

When he finally does finish, the clock reads nearly twenty eight in the morning, and he doesn’t think twice before sealing the poem into the envelope he prepared prematurely and labeled last night and licking it shut.

He grabs his coat and stumbles into his shoes before he’s out the door, letter in hand and a heart still caught not too far back in the past.

He runs for a solid ten minutes before he arrives, and when he does it is with a frozen nose and more than a slight pant. When he finally stops, arrives and reaches the end goal for all of this madness, he stares at the envelope.

Runs his hands across each corner and carefully traces the address, fingers following every delicate line.

He takes a breath. Closes his eyes and cherishes how the cold winter air wakes his lungs and brings his body into the present while his heart and mind still feel too far in past of last night and long before.

After another minute he opens his eyes and runs a hand over the envelope once more, checking for any signs of blemishes or imperfections, and feels relief when he finds none.

Dakin reads the address once more for certainty, for luck, and takes another breath.

When he opens up the post bin, it’s a sign of finality. Not of retreat or defeat, but of conquest in a mission far too late in its execution.

He drops the letter in, and briefly wonders if it drops at the same speed as his stomach.

Dakin breathes, takes a step back. Takes another one. Takes his eyes away from the post bin, and finally turns away.

As he heads home, he thinks of the words he had written in his letter the night before, and he wonders if this feeling - of emptiness and fulfillment simultaneously- is what Hector meant when he spoke of the life and love of a writer: of a poet.

He walks himself home instead of running the way he left, and thinks about the words he spent all night connecting, creating, and working all at once.

He thinks about his poem, and about the address he sent it to: about the hands that will tear it open, and the tired eyes that will read it.

Dakin pulls his jacket closer around himself, and breathes.

**Author's Note:**

> Comment and Kudos are much appreciated and I'm rhymesofblue on tumblr


End file.
